Jazz /
Sentiments
"Of all the American jazz artists who relocated to Europe and Scandinavia in the 1950s and 1960s, Sahib Shihab remains one of the most highly regarded and versatile, yet least celebrated. Although mostly known as a key member of the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band, Europe's leading big band of the 1960s, Shihab had a career that lasted 40 years characterised by an adaptability and individuality that marked him out as a player of exceptional skill on the baritone, alto and soprano saxophones …
Happy Hour
2025 stock B.F.A.M. (Brothers From Another Mother) was founded by drummer Spyros Panagiotopoulos. The band consists of Philippos Pappas on tenor saxophone, Panagiotis Kapsabeli on guitar, Rafael Meleta on piano, Pericles Trivolis on bass, Spyros Panagiotopoulos on drums and Dimitris Papadopoulos on trumpet.
Poly-Currents (Blue Note Tone Poet Series)
After his six years with the seminal John Coltrane Quartet, the master drummer Elvin Jones signed with Blue Note in 1968 and began building his own career as a bandleader. His first two albums for the label were spare trio outings—Puttin’ It Together and The Ultimate—both featuring saxophonist Joe Farrell and bassist Jimmy Garrison. For his next album—1969’s unfettered post-bop exploration Poly-Currents—Jones expanded his ensemble with additional woodwinds and percussion while still maintaining …
The Montreux Years
A collection of some of McCoy Tyner’s best Montreux Jazz Festival live performances!
The audio has Expertly restored and remastered in superlative HD audio; The Montreux Years is released on superior audiophile heavy weight vinyl and MQA quality CD. The release includes brand new liner notes and rare photos from his Montreux shows.
Odyssey Of Iska
The winds of change were blowing through Wayne Shorter’s life and career in 1970. The saxophonist had just left Miles Davis’ group and was soon to form his collective fusion band Weather Report. His music was evolving too as he began to delve into his own unique fusion explorations on his previous two Blue Note recordings Super Nova and Moto Grosso Feio. Recorded in August 1970, the mesmerizing Odyssey of Iska would be the last release of Shorter’s early Blue Note period. The album was a tribute…
The Soul And Gone
2006 release ** "Harris Eisenstadt's fifth album as a leader features a sextet of young Chicago players and all-star names. The lesser-known names are vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, gracefully waltzing through the drummer's complex compositions, and reeds player Jason Mears, who seems too busy keeping up with the score to truly shine. Bassist Jason Roebke has previously proved his worth (in Tigersmilk and the Scott Fields Ensemble, among other projects). Vandermark 5 trombonist Jeb Bishop and To…
Plays Arirang & Other Assorted Classics
* 2025 stock. 40th anniversary reissue. Gatefold LP + booklet with Obi-strip. * "There is no jazz in Korea" Music critic Choi Kyung-sik's liner note for the 1974 record by Shin Joong-hyun and the Yup Juns starts off with this stark statement. Though it may have been a rhetorical device to emphasize the birth of an album embodying Korean rock, the statement itself holds nevertheless when one considers that Korean jazz has never enjoyed a place of its own - not in the 8th Army scene nor the civili…
Plays Arirang & Other Assorted Classics
* 2025 stock. 40th anniversary reissue. Gatefold LP + booklet with Obi-strip. * "There is no jazz in Korea" Music critic Choi Kyung-sik's liner note for the 1974 record by Shin Joong-hyun and the Yup Juns starts off with this stark statement. Though it may have been a rhetorical device to emphasize the birth of an album embodying Korean rock, the statement itself holds nevertheless when one considers that Korean jazz has never enjoyed a place of its own - not in the 8th Army scene nor the civili…
Jazz: Plays Arirang & Other Assorted Classics. A.K.A. Jazz! Jazz! & Wonderous Jazz!
* 2025 stock * "There is no jazz in Korea" Music critic Choi Kyung-sik's liner note for the 1974 record by Shin Joong-hyun and the Yup Juns starts off with this stark statement. Though it may have been a rhetorical device to emphasize the birth of an album embodying Korean rock, the statement itself holds nevertheless when one considers that Korean jazz has never enjoyed a place of its own - not in the 8th Army scene nor the civilian general scene. As is usually the case in other countries, jazz…
On Mandorla Awakening II: Emerging Worlds
2025 stock ** "The innovative, boundary-smashing work of Nicole Mitchell, whom Chicago Reader music critic Peter Margasak has hailed as the “greatest living flutist in jazz”, has contributed new life to Afrofuturism in the 21st Century. A voracious reader of science fiction since her youth (Afrofuturist author Octavia E. Butler in particular has exerted a heavy influence on her music), the musician, composer and educator has released a string of albums that fold themes centered around technology…
Beches Brew
1990 release ** "Swedish drummer Bengt Berger made one masterpiece, "Bitter Funeral Beer", an astonishing world jazz album beyond category, that is as hypnotizing as it is guaranteed to move you to tears as well. On Beches Brew, he combines it all, great compositions, with great influences from Indian traditional music, alternated with more or less interesting Scandinavian folk, silly beer brawl songs and boppish pieces. The band consists of Thomas Gustafsson on soprano and tenor saxophones, Jon…
Room 1220
1993 release (RARE) ** "Three stunning tunes featuring some of the best improvisers in the world today, all of them written -- yes, written -- by trombonist Albert Mangelsdorf. Interestingly, with a band this diverse and dimensionally articulate, the composer has come up with a program addressing each of the band's particular strengths. The title track, clocking in at over 21 minutes, is a study in the spatial relationship of tonalities. Even so, with its slow unwinding passages -- and interesti…
Figure Of Speech
1993 release ** "The trio setting of tuba and non-traditional percussion and Eskelin's compositions leave an uncluttered canvas free of many of the standard traps of head-solo-head without disolving into the total formlessness of much "avant garde" jazz. The musicians (Ellery Eskelin - tenor, Joe Daley - tuba, and Arto Tuncboyaciyan - percussion) respond to the setting with some beautifully executed improvisations. At the center of the trio, Eskelin's thick tenor sound - a seemingly impossible …
Art Deco
Temporary Offer. Verve by Request Manufactured at Third Man Pressing in Detroit MI 180g Audiophile Quality Vinyl. As one of the last albums Don Cherry recorded before he passed away in 1995, “Art Deco” could be considered something of a return home – or at least a glance back over the shoulder. By 1988, the non-conformist trumpeter had been travelling the planet for about three decades, absorbing folk music of all styles, which led to collaborations with a wide variety of musicians. From South A…
Up Umeå
1999 release ** "As John Corbett argues in his liner notes, this session, recorded in 1969 (but not released until 1999) at the national Swedish TV studio, is a fascinating document of European free jazz. Phil Minton hasn't yet developed the timbral serialism and lightning speed of his later vocal work, but he hollers and trumpets with gusto. Minton's grandiose arrangements owe a debt to John Coltrane's Africa/Brass, but they have a special dignity too."
Vista
180g Vinyl LP! Pressed at Third Man in Detroit! Marion Brown ended his '70s stint at Impulse! Records with this serene and colorful album. It features musicians such as drummer Ed Blackwell and bassist Reggie Workman, plus Stanley Cowell on acoustic piano and Fender Rhodes. While Brown wrote the blissful coaster Vista, the five other compositions are well-chosen, starting with an inviting version of Cowell's "Maimoun" and an impressionistic and deeply meditative take on Stevie Wonder's "Visions"…
The Magic Of Ju-Ju
Opening with the 18+ minute track of the same name, Archie Shepp’s ‘The Magic of Ju-Ju’ takes on a fevered pace as the centrepiece of this date from 1968. Shepp lets loose from the beginning as he’s joined by Beaver Harris, Norman Connor, Ed Blackwell, Frank Charles and Dennis Charles, all on percussion. The initial pace never dissipates throughout the title-track’s run. The additional tracks on Magic of Ju-Ju are a departure from the first, sitting more in a traditional realm. The album is a va…
Glass Bead Games
Glass Bead Games is undoubtedly one of the finest spiritual jazz recordings to come out of the 70s, and is one that you absolutely must not miss!
The Ancients
Bomb! The debut recording by The Ancients, the intergenerational coalition of Isaiah Collier, William Hooker and William Parker formed by Parker to play concerts in conjunction with the Milford Graves' “A Mind-Body Deal” exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and now a working group. Across 2LPs of side-length long-form improvised sets recorded at 2220 Arts & Archives in LA and The Chapel in San Francisco, The Ancients bring the free jazz trio languages first explored by t…